3 Suspects Freed in London Transit Attacks

By ALAN COWELL

Published: May 16, 2007

The British police on Tuesday released three of four people arrested a week ago in connection with the London bombings of 2005, including the widow of one of the bombers.

The July 7 attack, in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people, was London's bloodiest peacetime atrocity. It was initially ascribed by the authorities to homegrown Muslim extremists acting alone.

Since then, though, two of the attackers have been linked to people involved in a separate terrorist conspiracy, which the police thwarted with arrests in 2004. In both plots, leading figures were said by the authorities to have visited Pakistan for training.

In a statement on Tuesday night, a police spokesman said the three people, all released without being charged, were a 30-year-old man, a 29-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man.

The older man and the woman had been arrested in West Yorkshire -- the home area of three of the July 7 bombers -- and the younger man in the West Midlands. The spokesman did not identify them by name.

The three people freed Tuesday had been held under counterterrorism laws permitting the police to detain suspects for up to 28 days without charge. But the police must seek regular judicial approval to keep suspects in detention. The spokesman said a fourth man, age 34, also detained a week ago, was still in custody.

The people arrested on May 9 included Hasina Patel, 29, who was married to Mohammad Sidique Khan, regarded by the police as the leader of the suicide bombers.

Mr. Khan said in a video released after his death that he was a ''soldier'' fighting for Islam. He and another bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, were said in recent court testimony to have been known to the security services more than a year before the July 7 attack.

The other people arrested May 9 were Khalid Khaliq, 34 -- who lived on the same street as Mr. Tanweer -- and Arshad Patel, 30, the brother of Ms. Patel. Imran Motala, 22, was arrested in the West Midlands.

The four were suspected of commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism related to the July 7 bombings, a police spokesman said when they were arrested last week.

In late March, three other people -- Mohammed Shakil, 30; Sadeer Saleem, 26; and Waheed Ali, 23; all from West Yorkshire -- were arrested and charged with conspiring to help with reconnaissance and planning for the London transit attacks. The charges were the first to be brought in the case.

The two sets of arrests suggested that the police were beginning to build a picture of the plot and of who had knowledge of it. But in the past, Muslim leaders in Britain have expressed outrage and anger at the police for arresting suspects only to release them without charge.

Masood Ahmed, a Labor member of a local council in West Yorkshire, told the Press Association news agency on Tuesday: ''The community will want some answers. There will be some reaction, I am sure.'' But, he added, the release of the suspects was ''good news over all.''